Martin Luther King Day, 2013

"White America needs to understand that it is poisoned to its soul by racism and the understanding needs to be carefully documented and consequently more difficult to reject."  Martin Luther King, 1967

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Day.  For many it is a day with no school or a day off work.  For many it is a reminder of the battles fought and the battles yet to come.  As a country is White American still "poisoned to its soul"?  We have record unemployment among African Americans in our inner cities.  We have fences going up in Arizona to keep immigrants out.  We have horrific health care and living conditions along the Rio Grande in Texas for Latinos.  We fill death row with minorities across the south.  Yet we have come a long way from the days of Martin Luther King.  We no longer have "colored" only schools, drinking fountains and lunchrooms.  We have an African American President. 

According to my Websters Dictionary a poison is "something destructive or harmful (2): an object of aversion or abhorrence."  Each day I encounter poisons of different sorts.  Usually the kind that people ingest, inhale or inject.  But today step back and think of a poison as something different, as Martin Luther King did in 1967.